African players vote for Best 11

Mohamed Salah and his teammates from the Egyptian national team were among the first to vote for the inaugural Africa Best 11 organized by FIFPro.

The vote is open to national-team members from 54 African countries. Players from Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Togo are among other national-team members to have already voted.

Players have been picking their team of the year in the last few days while with their national teams for African Cup of Nation qualifiers.

Salah voted ahead of Egypt’s 3-2 win against Tunisia. The Liverpool striker scored the winning goal in the last minute in Alexandria. Both countries already qualified for the AFCON tournament, which will be in Cameroon in June 2019.

Among the other voters was former Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor, who was on duty with the Togo national team for a match at home to Algeria. Algeria won 4-1 to qualify for next year’s tournament.

Paris Saint-Germain player Choupo-Moting picked his team before Cameroon lost 2-0 to Morocco in Casablanca.

The first Africa Best 11 will be announced in Dakar on January 8th at the annual award ceremony of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Salah is the defending African player of the year.

The Best Africa 11 vote was announced by FIFPro and CAF in October as part of a five-year cooperation agreement that includes education for players on issues including employment rights, tax and insurance.